198 Canadian Journal of Counselling / Revue canadienne de counseling / 2009, Vol. 43:3 Mindfulness, Stress, and Coping Among University Students Angèle Palmer Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto Susan Rodger University of Western Ontario abstract A sample of 135 first-year university students living in residence completed questionnaires that measured individual differences in mindfulness, coping styles, and perceived stress. Findings revealed significant positive relationships between mindfulness and rational coping, and significant negative relationships with emotional and avoidant coping and perceived stress. Regression analyses revealed that avoidant coping and perceived stress predicted 38.2% of the variance of mindfulness scores. Findings from this study improve our understanding of how mindfulness relates to coping styles, thereby suggesting po- tential ways to enhance counselling services and programming for first-year university students during the often difficult transition to university. résumé Un échantillon de 135 étudiants de première année d’université vivant en résidence ont rempli des questionnaires mesurant des différences individuelles d’attention, de styles d’adaptation et de stress perçu. Les résultats ont révélé d’importantes relations positives entre l’attention et l’adaptation rationnelle, et d’importantes relations négatives entre l’adaptation émotionnelle évitante et le stress perçu. Des analyses de régression ont révélé que l’adaptation évitante et le stress perçu prédisaient 38,2 % de la variance des scores relatifs à l’attention. Les résultats de cette étude améliorent notre compréhension de la façon dont l’attention est liée aux styles d’adaptation, ce qui suggère des moyens d’amé- liorer le service de counseling et les programmes ciblant les étudiants de première année d’université au cours du passage souvent difficile vers l’université. Recent publications in the domain of mind-body medicine have pointed to a growing interest in mindfulness and its role in coping with day-to-day stressors (Kabat-Zinn, 1990) as well as a basis for treatment with clinical populations (Baer, 2003; Kristeller & Hallett, 1999; Segal, Williams, & Teasdale, 2002). Contribut- ing to the literature, this article describes a study of mindfulness, perceived stress, and coping styles among undergraduate university students. First, however, to provide a basis for this research, clarification of mindfulness and its conceptual framework will be presented, followed by a discussion of the relevance of this topic to a university student population. Although research on the topic of mindfulness is burgeoning, researchers have yet to reach consensus on a single definition of mindfulness. A frequently cited definition is “an awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience Mindfulness, Stress, and Coping 199 moment by moment” (Kabat-Zinn, 2003, p. 145). Rooted in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism (Hanh, 1976), mindfulness is a 2,500-year-old Eastern practice of meditation known as Vipassana, or insight meditation (Goldstein, 1976), designed to cultivate increased awareness. Formal mindfulness meditation includes sitting, walking, and movement meditation, but mindfulness can also be practiced through activities of daily life, such as washing the dishes or eating a meal (Kabat-Zinn, 1990; Hanh). Approaching life mindfully has been shown to have positive psychological ef- fects (Baer, 2003; Brown & Ryan, 2003). As a form of “psychological freedom” (Martin, 1997), mindfulness entails approaching situations without attachment to any particular perspective, and paying attention to one’s mental thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations, thus allowing a space where one’s “habits of meaning, thought, behavior, or emotion are suspended, reconsidered” (p. 292). The danger of not being mindful and living on “automatic pilot” lies in being unaware of when old habits such as thoughts, emotions, and body sensations are activated. When or if circumstances do come into one’s awareness, it may be too late to respond skillfully (Williams & Swales, 2004). For example, automatic reac- tions following daily stressors (e.g., traffic) might entail directing irritation toward one’s partner or family upon returning home, or other coping methods that fail to best meet one’s needs in the circumstance. Through mindfulness, observation of internal experiences and the external situ- ation enables one to notice the connection between making too-quick interpreta- tions and subsequent experiencing of distress (Williams & Swales, 2004). In this “space,” one is thus better able to choose a response, rather than react reflexively (Bishop, 2002; Kabat-Zinn, 1990). Shapiro, Carlson, Astin, and Freedman (2006) refer to this “space” of disidentification from one’s thoughts, feelings, and external contents as a process of “reperceiving” (p. 2). A “meta-mechanism of action,” reperceiving is said to overarch other mechanisms, such as self-regulation, values clarification, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural flexibility, and exposure that in turn lead to positive well-being. Many studies to date have demonstrated the benefits of mindfulness-based treatments for a range of clinical disorders (e.g., Kabat-Zinn, 1982; Kristeller & Hallett, 1999; Marlatt, 2002; Roemer & Orsillo, 2002; Segal et al., 2002). Fewer studies have been conducted with community populations; the benefits of this are, therefore, less known. A second methodological concern is that the lack of operationalization makes it challenging to empirically test the construct of mindfulness (Bishop, 2002). A number of researchers have attempted to operationalize mindfulness and provide direction in future methods of inquiry (Bishop et al., 2004; Shapiro, Astin, Bishop, & Cordova, 2005). Brown and Ryan (2003) developed the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS), a 15-item scale that focuses on one’s presence or absence of attention to, and awareness of, what is happening in the present moment. The MAAS is a brief and reliable measure with construct validity that can be used in studies with non-meditators. Initial studies of the MAAS revealed individual dif- 200 Angèle Palmer and Susan Rodger ferences in mindfulness as well as significant group differences when comparing beginner meditators with skilled Zen meditators, suggesting that mindfulness skills can be greatly enhanced with practice (Brown & Ryan, 2003). Additional evalua- tions of the intersections of mindfulness and other factors (e.g., personality traits) accounted for in Brown and Ryan’s research is beyond the scope of this article. Notwithstanding methodological challenges, mindfulness meditation has been shown to enhance one’s ability to cope with life’s stressors (e.g., Astin, 1997; Chang et al., 2004; Goleman, 1988; Shapiro, Brown, & Biegel, 2007; Shapiro, Schwartz, & Bonner, 1998; Walach et al., 2007) through facilitating self-regulation, val- ues clarification, cognitive, emotional and behavioural flexibility, and exposure (Shapiro et al., 2005). Awareness of arousal from a stressor is heightened through mindfulness practice, which facilitates a quicker return to a state of equilibrium (Hayes & Feldman, 2004; Kabat-Zinn, 1990). If, however, over time one reacts to circumstances automatically and without awareness, as in “automatic-pilot” (Hanh, 1976; Martin, 1997), one may be at risk of experiencing the negative impacts of stress. Mindfulness, then, can be conceptualized as a feature of self-regulation, which is defined as “the process by which a system regulates itself to achieve specific goals” (Shapiro & Schwartz, 2000, p. 254). To a large extent, self-regulatory skills inform the ways in which individuals anticipate stressful events, thereby increasing the opportunity to avoid or minimize the impact of potential stressors (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997). This awareness, or mindfulness, a key feature in Brown and Ryan’s (2003) Self-Determination Theory (SDT), is thought to enhance self-regulation and, consequently, well-being, in that “the more fully an individual is apprised of what is occurring internally and in the environment, the more healthy, adaptive, and value-consistent his or her behaviour is likely to be” (Brown & Ryan, 2004, p. 114). In light of the definition of coping as “changing thoughts and acts an individual uses to manage the external and/or internal demands of a specific person-environ- ment transaction that is appraised as stressful” (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 34), mindfulness can be viewed as a type of self-control strategy (Marlatt & Marques, 1977) to stimuli that may be negatively stress provoking. A potentially stressful time is the transition undergraduate students experience entering university (Arthur & Hiebert, 1996). Here, students face changes that will have both short- and long-term impacts on their lives (Evans, Forney, & Guido- DiBrito, 1998), for example in the areas of interpersonal relations, particularly with parents, religious views, and sexuality (Lefkowitz, 2005). It is thus perhaps not surprising that many students new to university use alcohol, illicit drugs, and cigarettes to cope with this stress (Adlaf, Demers, & Gliksman, 2005). The potential for mindfulness practice to help buffer some of the negative stressors associated with university has been shown in a number of studies with university-student-aged populations (Astin, 1997; Shapiro et al., 1998). In their study that